Chamber of Commerce prez: Debt ceiling hike "will be done"

By
Greg Sargent

With a showdown over the debt ceiling looming, Dems are taking solace from the fact that the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- a staunch GOP ally -- said flatly on MSNBC this morning that he strongly supports raising the debt ceiling, and that despite all the poitical chest thumping from some Republicans, it's already a foregone conclusion:

Some Republican officials have insisted in recent days that they cannot support hiking the debt ceiling unless Obama and Dems make major concessions on bringing down spending. Since many observers say failure to raise the debt ceiling would be catastrophic for the country, this effort by Republicans looks like an effort to use the showdown as a bargaining chip to force the Dems' hand on spending cuts.

That's why the appearance above by Chamber president Tom Donohue is key. "We absolutely support the expansion of the debt," Chamber president Tom Donohue said. He added that officials should make a few gestures in the direction of spending cuts, but dismissed the brinksmanship as mainly political posturing.

"We've got to do the debt ceiling," he said. "There'll be a lot of political carrying on, but it will be done."

This is a sign that those Republicans insisting that they are willing to hold out against raising the debt ceiling may not have quite the leverage they think they do. That a staunch GOP ally like Donohue is already predicting it's a done deal suggests Dems are going into this showdown with a pretty strong hand.

UPDATE, 2:37 p.m.: A labor source emails over a smart point, arguing that this also shows a "big divide on some issues between `traditional' Republican business support and the new tea party folks."

This is anathema to the TP. This may mark the time when the Republican party's monied interests and their downwardly mobilized base begin to separate. Republicans resigning in fear of the armed faction they created and nurtured may become more common.

Which is what confused me that there was some cross support of some of the Chamber preferred candidates and tea party candidates. Either the Tea Partier's were willfully ignorant and just wanted a Republican representing them and don't really care about spending or they were bamboozled into voting for a Bush style spending Republican.

Here are a couple of arguments regarding competing currencies that Loughner was vaguely referencing. Currency seems to be his main motive. He mentions it in at least three videos and says it's his ambition.

@kevin: I'm sure troll hunter works fabulously for many, but some of us are not going to install software on the same computer we use for work. With that in mind, the comments of the troll hunter users are beginning to look quite odd.

"Did I get flagged for something? a comment on the previous thread was held for moderation. or what that just a quirk in the system?"

That still happens to me occasionally and perhaps this is the reason it happened to you. Try my solution if it doesn't work check with our resident IT Geek Kevin.

NoVa you might have run into the church lady. Earlier I tried to post with the words p*mp and sl*t and it never got through. Church lady even knows the the offensive acronyms like ST&U...so when you get that moderation response simply hit the back browser on your button to get back to your comment. Review for anything that might even marginally p&ss off the church lady censor...change it...hit the submit button once again and your good to go....

Now that's the last nice thing from me today NoVaHockey...your Caps invade(I know athletics if full of war like violent metaphors) Tampa tonight for a battle with MY first place Lightning. Thought I better pull your chain NoVa while we're still in first before your Caps retake the spot. :-)

I've got to get my wife one of those Palin Patriot brooches. Now that her political career is over, she is going to need to sell chachkas, no bad idea, I mean bric-a-brac, knick knacks, momentoes, costume jewelry, stuff to remember her by.

Now that her political career is over, she is going to need to sell chachkas, no bad idea, I mean bric-a-brac, knick knacks, momentoes, costume jewelry, stuff to remember her by.
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That's amazing that you suggest that idea. That's exactly what Dr. Laura does. She sells jewelry that she makes herself. Now, let me think, did she start doing that about the time her political rhetoric caused her ratings to plummet and her television show to be cancelled? Nah, that would be just *too* big a coincidence.

But skip, isn't trying to incite the other party into self-immolation part of the fun? I mean, we heard all those TP people talk about holding both parties accountable and how there would be "hell to pay" and that all they were about was shrinking the size of government.

Were they just kidding? Now are they going to fold their mock Winter at Valley Forge re-enactors' tent and get behind the Bush/Obama monetary policy? C'mon, I thought the TP was better than that, I thought the TP had a spine.

I took a two month hiatus from your blog quite frankly because of all the hate. The moronic pointless trolls like RFR or KDE are simply aggravations but the hate was getting me down.

I return to find that you are still posting well thought out and journalistically driven posts...kudos to you Greg on your posts since this tragedy.

And at the end of today let's see the comments on this topic versus the number on any of the S.P. items. And yet the SP people still wish to blame you for all of this.

Could you get your church lady to filter another word... HOMO! Hared is just over the top when he goes off on his homo rants. IMHO this is not acceptable and offensive to both our straight and gay posters alike.

Back OT. Everybody knows they're going to raise the debt ceiling...what we don't know is how the TP beholden pols will handle this. I suspect they'll do the same as Obama the last time this came up and he voted no. They'll count the votes...see how many no's they can afford before actually defeating the bill..and then argue over who gets to vote no to please their TP constituents and the R Caucus will apportion those no's to the members who need them most. It could get interesting if there are too many TP beholden reps to give out those no passes and still actually pass the bill.

@NoVa Sorry I did miss the fact that you are a Penguins fan....isn't it rough on you in ...wait for it another military metaphor...enemy territory.

FWIW I hope you got to see the HBO 24/7 series on your big outdoor showdown with the Caps...what a great game..despite the rain...and in your and my case despite a Caps win...the entire series was the best thing I've ever seen covering the NHL and I'm not a young man. :-)

Now that her political career is over, she is going to need to sell chachkas, no bad idea, I mean bric-a-brac, knick knacks, momentoes, costume jewelry, stuff to remember her by.
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That's amazing that you suggest that idea. That's exactly what Dr. Laura does. She sells jewelry that she makes herself. Now, let me think, did she start doing that about the time her political rhetoric caused her ratings to plummet and her television show to be cancelled? Nah, that would be just **too** big a coincidence.

If the debt ceiling bill is must pass legislation, the House should tie something to it that they say they want, but have little chance of passing otherwise. slap hcr repeal onto it and see who blinks first.

Thanks! I agree with your advice and in fact have been trying to practice what you are preaching and I agree they are simply jokes.

In fact at the risk of encouraging him I must confess it was fun to watch a bizarre mind at work as RFR created yet another sock puppet so as to talk to himself and praise himself. What I actually found a bit amusing was RFR complimenting himself on his sense of humor. LMAO

I'll leave it to shrink to determine if this kind of behavior tells us anything about RFR's mental health...talking to oneself is suspect is not that rare..but doing it in such a formal and public setting seems a bit peculiar.

The Senate would strip it out, vote on the debt ceiling bill and send it back to the House again.

Sure -- and send it right back. or refuse to take it up again. say "we passed the debt ceiling bill and are moving forward. it's the senate's problem" the senate is could dump the whole thing on obama's desk and make him choose. somebody will have to give in. but shrink is right about them not actually wanting a repeal.

@NOVAHockey: "Did I get flagged for something? a comment on the previous thread was held for moderation. or what that just a quirk in the system?"

You get flagged for comments that are exactly 3000 characters (delete one and you'll be fine) or language. So look and see if there's something that might be sexual or profanity. Also, more than 2 http:// or www., I think.

@schrodinger: "@Kevin: Just downloaded your latest version of the trollhunter"

Glad you like it! Remember to try out the Favoriting. Just click on the "Posted by: User_Name" over any comment and that user will be favorited, and hi-lited. Do it again to unhilite that person, or just clear the favorite list (at the very bottom of the page) to clear favorites.

Shrink: I did a thing for my AICN Extra Stuff mod that lets TalkBackers do white type, so it's invisible, but if you select it then you see it! Sort of Spoiler Inviso-Text . . . didn't really see the point of doing that here, but . . .

I also did a thing where you could embed mp3s, but that's problematical, so I don't think I'm going to do that here. Either they'd autostart or they'd definitely go ahead and autoload, and that was too much of a pain in the patootie.

KW, thanks for the updated software, although I have not yet loaded it.

Should the Congress actually balk at raising the Debt Limit, Treasury would still write checks, and you can bet the Fed Reserve would permit them to be honored. Thus Congress, which must back the previous obligations of the USA, would find itself in a Constitutional crack.

So the Debt Limit will be raised. IMHO.

BTW, the Debt Limit is an artifice and not a Constitutional mandate. Should the crack appear, I would expect the Supremes to actually side with the executive branch - and the way to do that without mandating Congress do something would be to declare any Debt Limit that impairs the Congressional backing of obligations already incurred unconstitutional.

(Reuters) - The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country's debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America's international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.
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